


you're the key.

by katarama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Chubby Lydia, Developing Relationship, F/M, Homecoming, Lydia-centric, Mentions of Former Disordered Eating, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been years since Lydia saw him in person, and she can feel herself cataloging the differences.  He’s taller than he used to be.  Slightly bulkier, though still lean.  His hair is cut short, now, and there’s a bit of chest hair showing in the unbuttoned part of his shirt.  His eyes are the same as ever, though, and his cheekbones are just as nice as he used to brag they were.</p>
<p>“Hi,” she says, smiling softly.  “Welcome back to California.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're the key.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rjosettes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/gifts).



Lydia is staring at her phone.

She’s playing Stiles in Words With Friends in an attempt to distract herself.  She’s sitting in her favorite table in her favorite cafe, and it would be so easy to look up and watch through the window of the restaurant.  It would be so easy to track the people walking by the store, to keep searching, her heart beating fast in her chest.  Waiting, increasingly impatiently, worrying that she’ll have to wait even longer.

She can’t do that to herself.  She doesn’t even look up, her phone set firmly on the table in front of her.  The time inches closer and closer to noon, and people keep eyeing the seat across from her, but no one’s been brave enough yet to come up and ask to sit there.  She’d tell them no, anyway, with no hesitation.  This is too important to risk just to appease a stranger.

Luckily, it doesn’t come down to that.

“Hi,” he says, and Lydia finally looks up.

It’s been years since Lydia saw him in person, and she can feel herself cataloging the differences.  He’s taller than he used to be.  Slightly bulkier, though still lean.  His hair is cut short, now, and there’s a bit of chest hair showing in the unbuttoned part of his shirt.  His eyes are the same as ever, though, and his cheekbones are just as nice as he used to brag they were.

“Hi,” she says, smiling softly.  “Welcome back to California.”

“It’s not Beacon Hills,” he notes as he takes his seat across from her.  He hands her a drink, and she sips carefully at it.  “I don’t know if you like it anymore, I know it-”

“Still is my favorite,” Lydia says.  “Some things don’t change.”

“You’re right.  You’re just as gorgeous as you used to be, after all,” he says.  Lydia doesn’t need the affirmation from him.  She’s confident in her skin in a way she wasn’t when they dated.  She’s gained weight since she left Beacon Hills.  Eating (or not eating) was a way of self-regulating, before, a way of asserting control when everything around her was wildly unpredictable.  Careful, small portions.  Small dress sizes.  

She’s much happier, now, and much healthier.  If he didn’t see that, he’d be out on his ass before they even got talking.

“You’re handsome, too, of course.  You look a lot less like you know it, though.  It’s refreshing.”

Jackson laughs, and it’s genuine.  Lydia missed the way he looked when it was genuine, when it wasn’t snide or smug.  His whole face lights up, and it gives Lydia so much hope.  She knows they’ve both changed a lot, and it’s the only reason they’re sitting across from each other.  They loved each other so much back in high school, but sometimes love isn’t enough on its own.  They hurt each other, treated each other as less important as they both were.  They were careless, with each other and each other’s feelings, and they both nearly broke in the process.

When Jackson said he loved Lydia, they could’ve went right back to where they were.  They could’ve tried to forget what happened between them, Lydia’s careless actions and Jackson’s careless words, the way they both tried to hurt each other to make themselves okay.  But they would’ve slid right back into bad habits, and Jackson was too important for Lydia to allow that.  So they took a break.  A pause.  Jackson left, and Lydia stayed.  But they always intended to find each other again.  

“College,” Jackson says.  “You get a certain number of nice shirts ruined from getting drinks thrown on you and you realize that maybe your approach isn’t quite working right.”

“Being a douchebag isn’t attractive,” Lydia agrees.  “We all had our defense mechanisms.”

“Like pretending to be half as smart as you actually were, Ms. Mathematics Ph.D.?” Jackson teases.

“Stiles thought he was a genius for figuring out I was smart, but I was really bad at pretending, in hindsight.  Both of us were way worse at pretending than we thought we were,” Lydia says.

“You’re wearing the necklace, so I guess we’re not pretending this time?”

It takes a lot of willpower for Lydia’s hand to not drift to her neck, to the key draped on a chain.  It’s a nicer chain than when he first gave it to her, that first night in his bed.  He got her a new chain for it, slipped the key on it and gave it back to her just before he left for London.  “ _So you know I’ll be back_ ,” he had said.  ” _So you have something to hold onto_.”

She tucked it away in her jewelry box, kept it safe there, intending only to pull it out on the nights where she missed him most.  When Allison died, it found its home around her neck, next to Allison’s Argent pendant.  It was a reminder to herself that she was strong.  That she had lost people she loved before, and that it hadn’t ripped her to shreds.  That she was allowed to miss Allison, and she was allowed to feel, but that it wouldn’t defeat her.

Lydia wouldn’t hand over the key, even if Jackson had asked her to.  She hadn’t handed it over before, when they were broken and fragmented and hurt and lost, and she would be even less willing to now.  But it doesn’t sound like that’s what he wants, just like it hadn’t sounded like that was what he wanted when he sent her that first text asking to meet up.

“I’m ready to come back home,” he had said, “to California and to you.”

“I’m not going to pretend this time, and I’m not going to do this if you are.” Lydia says.  “I want us to be honest with each other.  I want us to be better to ourselves, and better to each other.”

Jackson smiles, and it’s reassuring to Lydia just how much it still makes her ache, how much it makes her want to reach out and pull him close to kiss him.  She’s still attracted to him.  She still loves him.  And despite both of them exploring some, over the years, being with other people, learning new things about themselves, it seems like he might feel the same way about her, still.

“I want that, too,” Jackson says.  “I moved into an apartment here.  I got a job, something I actually like doing.  I got some recommendations for a therapist in town.  I’m here to stay.”

That’s all Lydia needed to hear to put her at ease, and it’s the easiest choice she’s made in a long while to say, “Then I am, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com).


End file.
